SALFIT, Sunday, January 31, 2021 (WAFA) – Israelis settlers last night set up a caravan on a Palestinian-owned land near the village of Bidya, in the occupied West Bank district of Salfit, apparently in a prelude to establish a new settlement outpost, according to witnesses.

They told WAFA that three vehicles for Israeli settlers brought the caravan at about 3:30 pm last night and installed it in Khallet Hassan area, on the outskirts of the village which has been facing an imminent threat of confiscation for th benefit of the colonial Israeli settlement project.

There are over 700,000 colonial Israeli settlers living in Jewish-only settlements across the West Bank in violation of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention which expressly bans the relocation of the occupying nation's civilian population to the land of the occupied.

According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more Palestinian land in the West Bank.

The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it "state land." This process began in 1979 and is based on a manipulative implementation of the Ottoman Lands Law of 1858, which applied in the area at the time of occupation. Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as "abandoned assets," and the expropriation of land for public needs. 

M.N